1. Field of the Invention
The specification relates to information search. In particular, the specification relates to searching for matching strokes based on clusters created for strokes in a set of forms.
2. Description of the Background Art
As the use of portable computing devices becomes common, many users input information into a form by using a stylus or a fingertip on the portable computing devices. For example, a user can fill out a medical form on a table. When searching the stroke data in the form, one approach is to convert the stroke data to symbolic text and perform a search using the symbolic text. However, the conversion can be error prone and if the results were similarly converted from stroke data, the results are subject to an error prone conversion as well. Another approach is to collect multiple stroke samples from the user (e.g., ask for the user to write the same word multiple times on multiple devices), analyze the multiple stroke samples and perform a search based on the analysis. The matching data from this approach create too many irrelevant results, and therefore have limited usefulness.